I found Alessandra an extremely strong Flex when I played her. With all her parley access and stats she doesn't struggle to get clues. Eyes of Valusia is a uniquely great weapon with her imo. Its very flexible and when combined with British Bull Dog and events, I didn't have many problems killing things. I started with it in the Longest Night, spawned the Bear with her and just killed in the first two turns. She's great. I played Underworld Support and found it very helpful in getting through her deck quickly and cycling all the events you need. I'd personally recommend it as the way to go with her. I didn't use Power Word, I felt with Underworld Support I didn't need it to be able to use a parley a turn and I was mostly right.
I’ve played Alessandra across every campaign now and I think ultimately she is quite swingy. But as you said, when she is at her peak she can carry the game, and I don’t think her valleys are too bad. For me, Power Word is a bit of a trap for her and I’ve found way better consistency playing her as a straight up Big Money Rogue and using her unique quirks to add power to it. She wants enemies and resources, so cards that give her both are ideal: Bianca and Kicking the hornets nest, and Bewitching allowing her to guarantee Beguile means she can always use her ability. I find a lot of her usefulness comes from how much of the map she can cover without needing to move and how risky you are willing to play her. If you plonk her adjacent to a few locations and then have her beguiled monster either investigate or evade other enemies in those rooms, you can still trigger Snitch to pick up clues while you are doing those actions. Double, double sends her to the moon imo, because she can DD the snitch and the Eldritch it to grab 6 clues from one Snitch. For me, Thick of it to grab Easy Marks and a snitch, then Bewitching and the second Snitch makes me feel very secure with her. (And that’s 11xp or so?). Then the rest is just more actions (fan, Leo), card draw (black market, friends) and then testless rogue shenanigans (intel report, small favour et all). Also I think grift is super underrated on her, I generally average about 2 resources with it but with Alessandra it’s a fast action so it’s basically Cryptic Writings- with the potential for more or less (Rogues, never change
Maybe one approach to go about this tier list thing is to give points in different categories (early campaign power, late campaign power, consistency, clue finding, fighting, flexing) and just add them up to get a point value. So far it is more like a completely arbitrary gut feeling supported by some vague arguments you can't really measure against each other.
I think she took a huge hit with power words nerf. being able to control 3 enemies at once was huge for our Alessandra, and having to test for it could definitely be rough.
Would be interesting to see a 0 / low XP tier list considering how highly you value investigator strength in early scenarios when determining your overall list.
I have been thinking about this too. Sometimes you die in the middle of a campaign and still need to finish it out too, so it's fun to think about who can still excel in that position.
Wrath of nkai spoilers below It’s so funny how zamacona is just 3/3/3. In the book he was practically invincible and the only way to get away from him with to hit him with a car and even then he just gets up
Honestly the problem is power word itself. Yes it’s the most powerful version of an allessadra deck you can make but you’ve said it yourself, you should build for consistency and to raise the power floor rather than trying to just scale the ceiling up and high roll. We’re so brainwashed by daisy to think that an extra action ability must be triggered every turn or you’re doing it wrong so we put in cards to try and enable it. For you it was power word for me it was Bianca de Katz, relatively bad cards to use on your parley off turns but they’re just unnecessary imo Rather, think of the ability more like how you look at healing cards differently with Vincent or certain allies differently with Leo. Medical student is good, but med student fast for 1 is fucking crazy. Same with Alessandra, yeah persuasion is awesome but fast persuasion is just insane I think the way to go is to just play her as an optimised value rouge with great draw and high card quality, and you also uniquely raise the card quality of your deck by giving certain powerful events fast. When you think of it like this, beguile also goes up in my estimation because using your extra parley to move enemies doesn’t have as much of an opportunity cost. With power word you have a massive opportunity cost with using beguile because it’s so much stronger but there was also the opportunity cost of all the insane hoops you had to jump through to make power word work when beguile works with no setup. Like I said, lower power, much higher consistency. With this style as well eldritch tongue is essential because it’s basically a draw 4 that lets you effectively double the parley count of your deck. I would just take snitch, grift, persuasion, motivational speech, existential riddle, vamp 3 optionally, and I’m also fond of 1 lock picks, 1 false credentials 4, and 1 dirty deeds. That and beguile is more than enough to make her ability strong and then you just put the good shit in. Cigarette case, Leo or Lola, friends in low places, pickpocketing 2, black market, big money if you want
On power word, in my opinion the best user of power word in the game at the moment is by far Marie (unless you count silly stuff like Gloria being better because she’s broken and also happens to be using power word) For the purposes of power word, her ability is functionally identical to Alessandra’s ability, free action for power words. Except the setup is just having arcane initiate, renfield, or blood pact in play with a backup plan. The benefit of Marie over allessadra is that theres nothing stopping Marie from running fine clothes, but he also can run cat mask and holy rosary. Dario gets you to 4 willpower with 10 resources but Marie just has to slap down a holy rosary and you’re already at 5 She’s also very capable of finding the power words between deep knowledge, arcane initiate, and scroll of secrets anyway. But the biggest advantage is that you can still run the mystic xp cheats. Take in the thick of it, arcane research, and down the rabbit hole and maybe just run hallowed mirror if you’re spooked by the trauma. You start the scenario with a power word with useful commands and next scenario you’ll already have 6 xp worth of upgrades on power word without any xp cost, and the next scenario it’ll be at 9. Similarly as well to allessadra, you don’t need to get the extra action every single turn to have already generated overwhelming advantage, so it’s chill if you don’t have doom on all the time It’s still not the best deck, and I don’t think it’s even the best Marie deck honestly, but I do think it’s the best power word deck cus post taboo I think the card is a bit of a meme, but it’s still usable and fun
The three Power Words out at a time feels like a pipe dream cause your leaving enemies out waiting till you assemble all three and your fighter can just kill them anyway. Power Word also doesn't prevent doom from being placed on them, and you aren't going to leave an enemy out as they accumulate doom. If it's for consistency sake. If you have 2 Lucid Dreamings that's technically 5 copies?
I think, with meta knowledge, you typically know what kinds of enemies will accrue doom from encounter cards and can reliably target ones that don't (nightgaunts are great targets, cultists not so much, as an example). And while I agree that 3 Power Words isn't reliable, 2 of them is (and getting the 3rd makes it reliable to find the 2nd one). You also just don't need to keep enemies alive. You're perfectly fine using Kick the Hornet's Nest or just waiting for a target. You don't need to let them stay on the board until Power Word arrives.
I found Alessandra an extremely strong Flex when I played her. With all her parley access and stats she doesn't struggle to get clues. Eyes of Valusia is a uniquely great weapon with her imo. Its very flexible and when combined with British Bull Dog and events, I didn't have many problems killing things. I started with it in the Longest Night, spawned the Bear with her and just killed in the first two turns. She's great.
I played Underworld Support and found it very helpful in getting through her deck quickly and cycling all the events you need. I'd personally recommend it as the way to go with her. I didn't use Power Word, I felt with Underworld Support I didn't need it to be able to use a parley a turn and I was mostly right.
I’ve played Alessandra across every campaign now and I think ultimately she is quite swingy. But as you said, when she is at her peak she can carry the game, and I don’t think her valleys are too bad.
For me, Power Word is a bit of a trap for her and I’ve found way better consistency playing her as a straight up Big Money Rogue and using her unique quirks to add power to it.
She wants enemies and resources, so cards that give her both are ideal: Bianca and Kicking the hornets nest, and Bewitching allowing her to guarantee Beguile means she can always use her ability.
I find a lot of her usefulness comes from how much of the map she can cover without needing to move and how risky you are willing to play her. If you plonk her adjacent to a few locations and then have her beguiled monster either investigate or evade other enemies in those rooms, you can still trigger Snitch to pick up clues while you are doing those actions. Double, double sends her to the moon imo, because she can DD the snitch and the Eldritch it to grab 6 clues from one Snitch.
For me, Thick of it to grab Easy Marks and a snitch, then Bewitching and the second Snitch makes me feel very secure with her. (And that’s 11xp or so?). Then the rest is just more actions (fan, Leo), card draw (black market, friends) and then testless rogue shenanigans (intel report, small favour et all).
Also I think grift is super underrated on her, I generally average about 2 resources with it but with Alessandra it’s a fast action so it’s basically Cryptic Writings- with the potential for more or less (Rogues, never change
Maybe one approach to go about this tier list thing is to give points in different categories (early campaign power, late campaign power, consistency, clue finding, fighting, flexing) and just add them up to get a point value. So far it is more like a completely arbitrary gut feeling supported by some vague arguments you can't really measure against each other.
I think she took a huge hit with power words nerf. being able to control 3 enemies at once was huge for our Alessandra, and having to test for it could definitely be rough.
I'd love to see your videos on Monterey and Wendy.
Would be interesting to see a 0 / low XP tier list considering how highly you value investigator strength in early scenarios when determining your overall list.
I have been thinking about this too. Sometimes you die in the middle of a campaign and still need to finish it out too, so it's fun to think about who can still excel in that position.
Huh. That'll be a fun thought experiment. I might make that someday.
Wrath of nkai spoilers below
It’s so funny how zamacona is just 3/3/3. In the book he was practically invincible and the only way to get away from him with to hit him with a car and even then he just gets up
Honestly the problem is power word itself. Yes it’s the most powerful version of an allessadra deck you can make but you’ve said it yourself, you should build for consistency and to raise the power floor rather than trying to just scale the ceiling up and high roll.
We’re so brainwashed by daisy to think that an extra action ability must be triggered every turn or you’re doing it wrong so we put in cards to try and enable it. For you it was power word for me it was Bianca de Katz, relatively bad cards to use on your parley off turns but they’re just unnecessary imo
Rather, think of the ability more like how you look at healing cards differently with Vincent or certain allies differently with Leo. Medical student is good, but med student fast for 1 is fucking crazy. Same with Alessandra, yeah persuasion is awesome but fast persuasion is just insane
I think the way to go is to just play her as an optimised value rouge with great draw and high card quality, and you also uniquely raise the card quality of your deck by giving certain powerful events fast. When you think of it like this, beguile also goes up in my estimation because using your extra parley to move enemies doesn’t have as much of an opportunity cost. With power word you have a massive opportunity cost with using beguile because it’s so much stronger but there was also the opportunity cost of all the insane hoops you had to jump through to make power word work when beguile works with no setup. Like I said, lower power, much higher consistency. With this style as well eldritch tongue is essential because it’s basically a draw 4 that lets you effectively double the parley count of your deck.
I would just take snitch, grift, persuasion, motivational speech, existential riddle, vamp 3 optionally, and I’m also fond of 1 lock picks, 1 false credentials 4, and 1 dirty deeds. That and beguile is more than enough to make her ability strong and then you just put the good shit in. Cigarette case, Leo or Lola, friends in low places, pickpocketing 2, black market, big money if you want
On power word, in my opinion the best user of power word in the game at the moment is by far Marie (unless you count silly stuff like Gloria being better because she’s broken and also happens to be using power word)
For the purposes of power word, her ability is functionally identical to Alessandra’s ability, free action for power words. Except the setup is just having arcane initiate, renfield, or blood pact in play with a backup plan.
The benefit of Marie over allessadra is that theres nothing stopping Marie from running fine clothes, but he also can run cat mask and holy rosary. Dario gets you to 4 willpower with 10 resources but Marie just has to slap down a holy rosary and you’re already at 5
She’s also very capable of finding the power words between deep knowledge, arcane initiate, and scroll of secrets anyway.
But the biggest advantage is that you can still run the mystic xp cheats. Take in the thick of it, arcane research, and down the rabbit hole and maybe just run hallowed mirror if you’re spooked by the trauma. You start the scenario with a power word with useful commands and next scenario you’ll already have 6 xp worth of upgrades on power word without any xp cost, and the next scenario it’ll be at 9.
Similarly as well to allessadra, you don’t need to get the extra action every single turn to have already generated overwhelming advantage, so it’s chill if you don’t have doom on all the time
It’s still not the best deck, and I don’t think it’s even the best Marie deck honestly, but I do think it’s the best power word deck cus post taboo I think the card is a bit of a meme, but it’s still usable and fun
The three Power Words out at a time feels like a pipe dream cause your leaving enemies out waiting till you assemble all three and your fighter can just kill them anyway. Power Word also doesn't prevent doom from being placed on them, and you aren't going to leave an enemy out as they accumulate doom.
If it's for consistency sake. If you have 2 Lucid Dreamings that's technically 5 copies?
I think, with meta knowledge, you typically know what kinds of enemies will accrue doom from encounter cards and can reliably target ones that don't (nightgaunts are great targets, cultists not so much, as an example).
And while I agree that 3 Power Words isn't reliable, 2 of them is (and getting the 3rd makes it reliable to find the 2nd one). You also just don't need to keep enemies alive. You're perfectly fine using Kick the Hornet's Nest or just waiting for a target. You don't need to let them stay on the board until Power Word arrives.
Imagine the look on Alessandras face as she Power Words 3 swarms of rats and watches them eat a Deep One Bull.
Runic axe > army of rats
Wait, how? The fight value needs to be higher for an enemy to betray.